Business Leadership

Chapter 1 of 120 chapters [part one]

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1. Leadership: 

The Ability to Attract & Organize Others to achieve a specific vision – results.

A successful leader searches for and finds creative ways to “engage, educate & entertain” others, make advancements, define review processes, gauge results and reward accomplishments. 

1. Leadership Systems, Strategies & Tactics:

a. “The Hub”…where the leader is the center hub with the team members as “spokes”.

i. Everything revolves around the “hub leader”; this is the “military” model.

b. “The Attractor”…where the leader creates relative “equality” among the team…and facilitates the answers though the right questions.

i. The key role here is one of “facilitation and direction”… where the questions direct the conversation…the facilitation supports the team. This is the “heart” model.

c. “Allegiance to the Vision”… where the leader defines and shares the vision for the company is such a precise and passionate manner as to create belief, commitment & allegiance. This is the “kingdom” model.

d. “The Coach” … in this style of leadership, the leader is on the sidelines sending in the plays. The coach exclusively works “on” the business and is not involved “on the field” running plays or taking hits.

e. “The Quarterback” … here the leader is both following the plan at the same time “calling the play” as he/she sees the other factors [defense] change on the field of play. The quarterback/leader is “in the game” and protected by other players. 

f. “The Receiver/Running Back” … this style of leadership is often where most business owners start the game. This “RR” leader is fully in the game…creating the plays, doing the work…and taking the hits…leadership by “the third level” example. 

A successful leader must attract and organize others to achieve a specific result. To do this, a successful business leader must possess and demonstrate, in a meaningful manner, Integrity, Credibility and Commitment. Integrity must be both “within” one’s self and “with others” in that integrity reflects what another person 

wants to identify with… in that one will want to be associated and be with someone who shares the same values and “point of view” while here on the planet. 

This “integrity” often expresses itself in “charisma” or “charm”…something in this person seems to attract us at a basic primal level. 

Integrity is contrasted with credibility in that “credibility” is the assurance by another, that what you say and do is closely aligned with each other. As you might imagine, the ability to trust, rely upon and predict the behavior of another person is hard wired into our genetic make-up. Most people have a developed sense of intuition as to any “incongruence” with other people in both their integrity and credibility… hence terms like “he is one of us”… and “I trust him”. 

After the successful business leader develops and communicates both integrity and credibility, then for others “to follow”, the leader must demonstrate commitment to the project at hand. This commitment must be shown in both “exposure to risk” and “work to be done”. We have all seen business owners who are willing to do whatever needs to be done to create the success necessary for the entire team… all the way from sweeping the floor to staying up late at night doing the requisite work. Most of us seem to have a deep respect for the leader… who leads by example. A leader can temporarily “lead” by words alone… but to be a sustainable leader that others will follow… words alone are not enough… the leader’s words must be accompanied by works each day. 

As you can see, many of us decide who is a leader by a combination of their [or our] words, actions and energy… not only the activity/energy to work on behalf of the vision and the team, but also the “energy of attraction”. It is not clear from research whether “leaders” are natural born leaders… but certainly all of us can become better leaders. Leadership first starts with your decision to be a better leader…then followed by time, focus and education/training. Like any athlete, to get in better shape, leadership training is like Olympic training in that you have to be willing to put in the time, work and dedication to reach for the gold medal. 

The successful leader does not take “time off” from the qualities of leadership. To be a successful business leader, we must develop our integrity, credibility and commitment every moment of every day.